Advertising poster: S. Adam
Sports and Travel Wear

When the men’s fashion store S. Adam was founded in 1863, it mainly sold clothes for a leisurely lifestyle. Situated at a prime location in the center of Berlin, the store initially specialized in fine men’s and boy’s wear, including bathrobes. However, the more dynamic nature of urban life in the early twentieth century affected the business, which had passed into the hands of several Adam brothers. As the prosperous middle class caught the sports craze, S. Adam introduced and expanded a corresponding line of goods. It evolved into a store where sports-minded men and women could equip themselves for hiking tours and ski vacations—as shown by this poster, designed in 1908 by the famous commercial artist Louis Oppenheim.

In the 1920s, S. Adam began catering to the film industry. Director Arnold Fanck, famous for movies such as The White Hell of Pitz Palu, purchased goods from S. Adam for his first mountain films. Ties to the movie industry continued to bear fruit for family members long after the store had closed in the early 1930s. Ken Adam attained international fame as a production designer for James Bond films. Born in 1921 to one of the Adam brothers in Berlin, he had emigrated Germany with his parents in 1934.